


To give you Hope (and the Future)

by RavenXavier



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (thanks web), Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Explosions, Gen, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, a very big tag for this short story where there is barely a road trip at all but, the fascinating adventures of adelard gertrude and agnes in the 70s
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:02:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28449618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenXavier/pseuds/RavenXavier
Summary: By the time the three days are over, Adelard is left with one question only: does he do it alone, at the risk of being found and emptied? Or does he ask for help, at the risk of making this much louder than it could be?
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13
Collections: End of Year Exchange 2020





	To give you Hope (and the Future)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WitchyBee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WitchyBee/gifts).



> Happy end to this difficult year! To the hope of 2021, etc.! 
> 
> It was a very nice exercise to try and find Dekker's voice, since I've never really written him before. I hope you enjoy this!!! 
> 
> Thanks so much as ever to mysterious betareader for reading over this! <3

You cannot save everyone. 

Adelard knows this. He is neither a fool nor a dreamer, no matter what people are inclined to think when they see the white patch on his collar. To believe in God does not necessarily mean there will always be a miracle to help you when you need it. That there is good in the world is not enough, and it will never be enough. 

But Adelard prides himself in not being cynical either. You cannot save everyone, indeed. It does not mean you shouldn’t try your best to save as many as you can, if God sends them into _your_ path and you have at your disposal skills they do not possess.

“Give me two weeks,” he tells the woman weeping on her couch. “Mourn your friend. I will ensure you and the others might get away from this.”

“Will we?” the woman asks. “Johannah thought so, and now she’s — she’s —”

“Two weeks,” Adelard repeats gravely. 

He has never been, unfortunately, good with tears. He finishes the cold tea on the small table and gets up without further formalities. He knows what to do.

*

It takes three days to investigate the factory. The first one is spent resisting the urge to leave, the endless reasons that pass idly through his mind as he discusses with Mrs Fromont’s colleagues. It might have been an unrelated accident, he tells himself, quite reasonably. The danger might already be gone. Maybe there isn’t any monster to destroy here, and the real one was Miss Johannah Brett all along, wherever she is now. 

Every single thought is logical and his. The memory of his promise, however, is stronger, as is the belief that something is not right here, and was never right at all. 

By the time the three days are over, Adelard is left with one question only: does he do it alone, at the risk of being found and emptied? Or does he ask for help, at the risk of making this much louder than it could be? 

He hesitates too long; when he looks up, the sky is black outside, and three small spiders are scurrying over his steering wheel. 

“Well, then,” he nods gravely, and crushes all three of them in a single blow.

*

“Mr Dekker,” says Agnes Montague, when he sits at her table. Her politeness is a lovely front for the excitement that makes her fingers curl tightly around her untouched coffee mug. “Have you got a letter?”

“Better yet,” he tells her soberly. “I believe I’ve found a spider nest.”

The light catches Agnes’ eyes — they burn brightly, and the coffee bubbles in her hands. Adelard returns her politeness by not staring too long. One cannot choose how they are born, nor how they are stopped. Agnes, he believes, is not so much a monster as she is a tragedy in the making. Adelard is unsure they can ever properly be friends, but he knows how to serve both their interests quite nicely in the meantime.

“How do you feel about being kidnapped, Miss Montague?” he asks. 

“Now?”

“I believe Saturday would do nicely.”

“I’ll be ready, then.” 

“Good. Bring a small suitcase, we’ll probably spend a night at a hotel beforehand.”

There’s almost childish delight in the smile Agnes offers him. Adelard itches to stay here, and start talking to her about religion again and the lies false deities promise to their creatures, but he abstains. Last time, they did not talk for a year afterwards, and the cafe almost burnt down. One must always be careful with belief. 

He drains his coffee, and does not shake her hand. “One last thing,” he warns her. “I intend for us to go by the Magnus Institute as well.”

*

“Absolutely not,” Gertrude says, crushing her cigarette on the ground. 

The way she’s peering at the figure sitting neatly at the back of the car, Adelard can’t help but think she’s doing this purely for appearances. Not many people know that underneath her ruthless pragmatism, the head Archivist of the Magnus Institute has a fondness for needless dramatics. 

“You agreed to help,” he tells her.

“You didn’t tell me the whole truth,” she retorts.

“I didn’t lie either,” Adelard points out. “What are a few careful silences between friends?”

Gertrude doesn’t look impressed — but then again, she never does. Thankfully, Adelard is not one to cower in front of her, which is how they’ve managed to work together for the past ten years. She purses her lips; he raises his eyebrows.

“Spiders, you said?”

“Most definitely.”

“Well then,” she sighs. 

She eyes her purses disdainfully, opens it to grab a tape recorder, and neatly crushes it with her shoe next to the cigarette. 

“If this all goes wrong, Adelard,” she warns him. “You’ll only have yourself to blame.”

“I’ve made my peace with God long ago,” Adelard smiles and waves at her to pass first. 

*

“Road trip?” asks the front desk lady. 

“Of a sort,” Adelard answers. 

Gertrude snorts in her notes. Agnes glows. 

“I’m afraid we’ve only got two rooms left,” the front desk lady says. 

There’s too much curiosity in her voice. The sort of curiosity that can lose a soul, if they’re not careful enough with it. Adelard is irked by the implicit question. _Which one is the priest sleeping with?_ He doesn’t need the Watcher to see the unfortunate glint in her eyes. He’s seen it plenty before. With the life he lives, he admonishes himself, it should be the last thing that bothers him. And yet. 

“We’ll share,” Gertrude and Agnes say at once, with the exact same intonation. 

The front desk lady looks taken aback, perhaps even a little bit uneasy. Agnes stares at her until she looks back to her papers. Gertrude lights up a cigarette.

Adelard’s shoulders relax.

*

“I hate it when they do that,” Agnes murmurs.

So near, she radiates heat. Adelard has the quiet thought that, next time, he’ll take her out on such a trip in winter — right now, he’s so hot it’s becoming quite uncomfortable. On the other side of him, Gertrude crosses her arms over her chest.

“It’s uncanny,” she says. “How unnoticeable it all is.”

“This is why I wanted you both here,” Adelard tells them. “Between the three of us, there is less chance to be lost to their desires.”

Gertrude looks grim. Agnes looks grave. Adelard looks on to the factory.

_What of their jobs_ ? _Destroy a monster you have never seen, and that might not exist, only to send into trouble all the women working here?_

“Let’s start with the C4, shall we?” he suggests.

*

They’re still driving away when the factory bursts into flames. They’ve made sure there would be nobody here, not yet. Dawn has barely risen above the horizon. But they know they’ve succeeded the moment the weight on their minds disappears. 

Behind the wheel, Gertrude is driving too fast, trying to outrun the smoke. Adelard holds on for dear life to the grab handle, and behind them Agnes has opened the window, breathing in deeply. 

For a few minutes, time is made of the adrenaline pulsing at Adelard’s temples, the sweet taste of a mission well-accomplished, and the horrid smell of burning.

Then, Gertrude starts to cackle madly — or, perhaps, it’s Agnes that starts giggling first; it doesn’t really matter. It never does. They’re laughing and laughing and laughing. Adelard attempts a frown. 

“ _Ladies,_ ” he says, with the voice he used to believe he would give sermons with. 

His lips are twitching, though. Sermoning was never his best skill.

*

“What am I going to _do?_ ” Mrs Fromont cries. She looks frazzled and anxious. 

Adelard squeezes her forearm. 

“What Johannah could not,” he tells her. “Choose your fate.”

She does not look reassured by that. 

They never do.

Adelard sighs, and drinks the cold tea on the small table. 

You cannot save everyone, of course not. But you can try. Again and again and again. And maybe, sometimes, it comes down to savouring the small victories instead of the big one you were hoping for. Like laughing freely in an old, battered car at dawn, for example. 


End file.
